Two Hams on the Road

Sunday, August 23, 2015

We are in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

It was a dark and stormy day.  Actually, 2 dark and stormy days.  The storm on the drive to Winnipeg yesterday was so bad we pulled over and took a nap until the worst was gone.  It took out a lot of electricity, including at the park we are staying at.  It’s been up and down several times since, but mostly up.  The wind is wicked and the clouds are scurrying across the sky.  It’s a good time to be curled up in front of the fireplace with a book.

Unfortunately, we have no fireplace and I’ve read all the real books I brought.  Curling up with my iPad and Kindle app just isn’t the same.

We have no photos for the last couple of days.  As we neared Winnipeg, the scenery began to look alot like Indiana, mostly flat and you could see trees on the horizon.  As we left Calgary, the only trees we saw were planted as wind breaks.  They are definitely needed up here.  The wind is fierce.  We have seen some windmills, but nothing like the numbers we have in Benton County back home.

The windbreaks are serious.  A typical one has at least three staggered rows of trees with a row of bushes on each side of the trees.  It frequently surrounds not only the house, but the barn buildings as well.  We get a little peek into some through the driveway opening as we pass by.

We’ve been traveling on the Trans Canada highway and it’s been a bit of a surprise.  Most of the time, it is not a limited access highway.  It is also not exactly smooth.  All during our tour and after on the Alaska highway, we encountered this sign indicating bumpy roads:

But the Trans Canada highway has had at least as many bumps and the majority are not marked.

It has all been paved, which is a change.  I’m still working on getting all the dust out from our tour.  It may be a never-ending task.  While the Alaska Highway is technically all paved, there are sections that are being rebuilt that are gravel or dirt.

I’ve looked back over my blog and realized I never blogged about Dawson City, where the Klondike gold rush was.  We went there after Whitehorse on our longest travel day with the tour, about 7 hours.  I remember being really tired.  We ran into town to find some dinner and came back and crashed.  It was 10 pm and 80 degrees and the sun was still up.  Spike, our tour leader, claimed we were 150 miles from the artic circle.  Sunset was supposed to be around 2 am.  It was June 15, so we were only a few days from the summer solstice, June 21.

For a small town (population under 2,000), there’s a lot to do in Dawson.  There are many buildings from the gold rush era and Parks Canada (Canada’s national parks system) has taken control of many of them.  They offer a walking tour of Dawson and we had a wonderful guide, Jonathan.

The post office and bank are two of the buildings that have been restored.

They’ve also restored one of the saloons.

Here’s Jonathan talking about the saloons in town.

We also saw Jack London’s cabin, which has been moved to Dawson City from its remote site and two replicas were made with the original logs.  The other replica is in Oakland, California, Jack London’s hometown.  Jack is probably best known as the author of the book “Call of the Wild”.

We then drove up to Midnight Dome, a hill overlooking Dawson.  The view was very hazy.  It was only later that we realized it was smoke from the Alaska wildfires.

We did get someone to take a picture of the two of us.

The next day was mostly a free day, so Susan and I went shopping.  This store had great stuffed animals.  I wanted to buy them all.

Susan’s favorite was the standing bear.

That night we panned for gold on the creek where the first Klondike gold was found.  Most of us who panned found at least a flake!

And, yes, I tried my hand and got a flake or two.

And some of the women had very stylish boots!

We had two free days in Dawson and Steve and I drove back up to Midnight Dome to see if the view was any clearer.  It was!

I don’t know if you’ll be able to see the two colors in the river.  The darker water is the fresh water from the Klondike River while the gray water is the glacial water of the Yukon River.  The glacial water has microscopic dust in it from the glaciers grinding rocks.  Fish can live in it, they’ve adapted.

Later that day we visited the Dawson City Museum, which was quite well done for a city that size and included 4 steam engines.  The railroad used to come this far north, but highways put it out of business.

Steve captured a picture of this house boat as we walked along the river.

Reminds me of Tom Sawyer.

Travel in Western Canada and Alaska has gone from foot and river to train to roads.  Dawson City was a transportation hub because of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers.  The Yukon River is 1980 miles long and connects British Columbia to the Bering Sea.  It was a major waterway plied by riverboats until the 1950’s when a highway to Dawson City was completed.  I think a riverboat cruise of the Yukon would be awesome.

This post is getting very long, so I’ll close for now.

Have a good day!

Deb